DJLLAP's study journal

DJLLAP · Post by **DJLLAP** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 12:51 pm

Hello everybody! I have been reading this forum for a while now from work, but I haven't posted much. I started playing go about a year ago and I shot up 8 kyu in about 3 months, but haven't made much progress since then. My current kgs rank is 7 kyu. I think my main weakness right now is that my reading is horribly shallow. To counteract this, I have been working out of graded go problems for beginners, but have found it difficult to keep a consistent study schedule. I have started this journal in order to properly motivate myself to study. The goal I have in mind is Shodan by January 28th (my 27yh birthday). I will probably want to work through Graded Go Problems at least twice before moving on to something else.

I have noticed that my strength seems to go up several stones when I play very seriously. Since joining the ASR League a couple months ago I have managed to win against several players ranked much higher than me (including a couple 1 kyus). As part of my study, I will be posting some of my ASR games in this journal. To start here are two games that I have played this past week. Feel free to comment and show me the error of my ways

karaklis · Post by **karaklis** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 2:13 pm

DJLLAP wrote:I have noticed that my strength seems to go up several stones when I play very seriously. Since joining the ASR League a couple months ago I have managed to win against several players ranked much higher than me (including a couple 1 kyus).

I was stuck at the 7 kyu area for a long time. What helped me to advance a few stones (and obviously helps you as well) is playing serious games where you force yourself constantly to read out the positions as much as possible.

shapenaji · Post by **shapenaji** » Wed Jun 06, 2012 2:55 pm

Your play against that 2d was really good up until he blasted you in the endgame, and your play seems to have a lot of novelty and interesting ideas. (In fact, the way you play reminds me a lot of the way I played when I started)

What got me to Shodan in a year was a few things. (These may or may not work for you, but I sense a kindred spirit here)

1) Tesuji problems, tons of 'em. And try not to do them too slowly, if you can't figure it out in a reasonable amount of time, it means that you don't have a feeling for the shape yet, go ahead and look at the answer, and it will give you a leg up in similar positions.

2) Find people considerably stronger than you, in real life. With your rate of advancement, I don't think they'll mind playing you. Then alternate playing correct handicap and no handicap. Try not to play too slow, breaking past 7k is more about getting the feel of the flow of the game.

3) Never let yourself be cowed by an opponent, play at the razor-edge of efficiency. Always look for an opportunity to tenuki. (If you can't read how they can punish you, then you shouldn't play somewhere just to be safe)

DJLLAP · Post by **DJLLAP** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 9:58 am

Thanks for the advice guys.

@Shapenaji - Do you have any suggestions for tesuji problem books or online resources? I am borrowing the Davies Tesuji book from a friend right now, but it is a little annoying in that it doesn't really give much of a chance to practice what you have learned. The only other book I know of is Get Strong at Tesuji.

SoDesuNe · Post by **SoDesuNe** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 10:06 am

"Get Strong at Tesuji" is really good (in my opinion the best english Tesuji problem book). The Graded Go Problems for Beginners series has quite a few Tesuji-problems, too. Yi Ch'ang-Ho Selected Tesuji Problems series is also very good. "501 Tesuji Problems" is said to be quite good as well, but it might be too hard for you at the moment. The same thing goes to the various Tesuji dictionairies like Shuko's Basic Tesuji Dictionary or the Segeo/Go Tesuji dictionairy.

Then there is book called "200 Tesuji Problems", but sadly I don't know anything about it.

shapenaji · Post by **shapenaji** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 10:08 am

DJLLAP wrote:Thanks for the advice guys.

@Shapenaji - Do you have any suggestions for tesuji problem books or online resources? I am borrowing the Davies Tesuji book from a friend right now, but it is a little annoying in that it doesn't really give much of a chance to practice what you have learned. The only other book I know of is Get Strong at Tesuji.

Get Strong at Tesuji is my favorite, largely because with my above strategy (Spend 20 seconds looking at a problem, if I don't have the answer, check the answer and move on) it makes it super quick (Turn the page and look in the same spot).

There are some chinese and korean problem books that are worth it too. I don't know the names, unfortunately.

Other than that, I really recommend goproblems.com and http://gochild2009.appspot.com/

goproblems is great for just logging on and doing things randomly. I feel doing 1 tesuji problem in a string of L&D, endgame, and opening problems is really useful. When you're not necessarily sure if it IS a tesuji problem, you have to look a little deeper to verify.

gochild is something I've started using more recently, I think it's great, but since I haven't broken past my current rank since I started using it, I can't actually say that the organization is ideal. I just think it has a lot of great problems.

DJLLAP · Post by **DJLLAP** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 10:09 am

A brief little update:

I have subscribed to Goproblems.com, and loaded all of the problems onto gogrinder on my phone for easy access anywhere. I am mostly working out of Graded Go Problems v4. I am trying to spend at least 30 minutes a day solving go problems. I am also using gochild a lot while at work, but I am not sure how beneficial it is being since I don't really have the freedom to seriously try and solve them, so I end up clicking around much too often.

I got my wife to allow me to buy a new go book every month, so soon I will be able to buy get strong at tesuji.

I have had a very hard time this month finding ASR games. after the first week when I got 5 games, I have not had a single one. I will most likely drop down to gamma next month.

On the other hand, my playing has been doing well recently. My KGS rank graph does not seem to be moving up much, but I am winning most of the games I play, so I hope to rise to 6k soon. I played a nice game on Tygem last night that I may post when I get home. I made some awful joseki mistakes in the beginning, but was able to scratch my way back from the edge of defeat. I intimidated my opponent into playing one last protective move against a nonexistent threat and won by half a point.

Eizero · Post by **Eizero** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 11:37 am

This is probably irrelevant but in your game against 2d, black didn't deal with the 33 invasion very well. He was really over concentrated. And at move 47 he really should have tenukied..

DJLLAP · Post by **DJLLAP** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 12:08 pm

Eizero wrote:This is probably irrelevant but in your game against 2d, black didn't deal with the 33 invasion very well. He was really over concentrated. And at move 47 he really should have tenukied..

I am inclined to agree with you. I was pretty giddy at that point in the game, and I felt I was significantly ahead. But if I was in his position I probably would have done the same thing without even thinking. Joseki, I suppose can be a two edged sword.

DJLLAP · Post by **DJLLAP** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 8:18 pm

Here is the aforementioned Tygem game. I like to play my casual games on Tygem because the players there let me get away with less than on KGS. And I don't mind losing as much because t is not my home server.

jts · Post by **jts** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 10:34 pm

At

, you're the one who's being hyper-aggressive! Maybe you should focus less on applying labels ("this is too aggressive, that's no good, this is a good punishment") and more on reading and strategy ("here he permits me to hit his stones on the nose, this move will allow him to cut, I wonder what aji these weak black stones have").

EdLee · Post by **EdLee** » Fri Jun 22, 2012 1:19 am

DJLLAP · Post by **DJLLAP** » Fri Jul 06, 2012 10:21 pm

As of Today I have officially reached KGS 6 kyu. I peaked into 6k for a single game a couple of days ago, but I was in an agitated state of mind (having just lost badly at halo due to slow internet :cry:

) and I lost badly. We will see if I am able to hold onto the rank permanently, but I have a feeling I will. I have attached here my promotion game.

Cheers!

DJLLAP · Post by **DJLLAP** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 1:43 am

Things have been going pretty well for me these past couple weeks. It hasn't even been 2 weeks since my promotion to 6kyu, and I am already well on my way to 5k. So far in my ranked games as a 6k I have a record of 12-4. I don't know if I suddenly got stronger, or if I am having a string of unbelievable luck. Before this winning streak, I was getting frustrated that all of my study was having little to no impact on my game. Maybe it all just finally caught up. In any case, seeing some results gives me more motivation to study hard.

I played and won 4 games today. I am posting the most interesting one here.

PS. I know I am sounding awfully overconfident, but I am just trying to enjoy the wins while they last

Tyro · Post by **Tyro** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 9:14 pm

Keep up the good work! Let's improve together (aka, hope to see you on kgs).

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